Just in Time
by Daria234
Summary: AU: What if Buffy had stopped Faith from killing the mayor's aide? How would the next few years play out differently? Ficlets in the twoendings style - two possible outcomes to one event, you choose the one you want.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: from a prompt at comment_fic on livejournal : what if Buffy stopped Faith from killing the mayor's aide? The format is inspired by the twoendings fanfiction community on livejournal; one plot has two endings and you choose the one you like better.

Fic:

Buffy saw it in time; her hand was on Faith's in a flash, and before the mayor's aide could wince in fear, Faith was looking perplexed and fairly pissed at Buffy. Then she did a double take and saw that she was about to kill a human - a sniveling human who soon ran away threatening them with being devoured by city hall -- but a human nonetheless.

They looked at each other, reluctant gratitude meeting veiled worry. It was too close a call. But neither of them wanted to dwell on the what-ifs. On the hows and whys and whethers. It would have changed Faith - maybe changed them both.

But Buffy saw it in time. No harm, no foul. And they had bigger problems to deal with.

And they did. They worked together against the mayor. Against later enemies as well.

But that world where it happened - where Buffy didn't stop her in time - where Faith killed a man... they didn't think about it much. But that world would have been a lot different.

* * *

Ending 1:

Faith never killed anyone. Not anyone with something there to kill.

She never joined the mayor. She never did more than flirt with Angel. She never fought Buffy until she got shanked with her own knife.

She never spent a comatose year dreaming of climbing out of a pit full of fire and blood.

She never more than half-formed the question of why people looked at Buffy the way they would never look at her.

She smiled and slayed and did her best to act like she was one of them, never asking herself why she felt it was an act, why she was better at understanding how monsters think than humans.

When the First came to visit, it went for the weakest. Not Spike. Not Andrew. Not the scared young slayers-to-be.

It came to Faith. And it showed her the shadow inside her, the vine of hate and rage that she had choked on for so long. She had no way of fighting it.

When it was over, when they had lost the earth, and they sat huddled, waiting for the end, they didn't know who had betrayed them. Faith sat silently with them, not feeling any reason she should tell them.  



	2. Alternate ending also with angst

Possible Ending 2:

Rogue slayers were something they mentioned in history books. Not in the present day.

So despite Giles' occasional comments, no one took it too seriously that Faith and Buffy would play a little loose with the rules, would take what they needed instead of working at a fastfood place to pay for it, would threaten or blackmail an official to keep custody of Dawn instead of forcing her to go to school.

Eventually, Giles went back to England, saying they could protect the town, between the two of them and Willow. But of course, Faith and Buffy sometimes had friction, and Faith eventually took off - amicably- to look for people who needed help other places. She hooked up with one of Angel's friends, Gunn, for awhile, before heading to hang out in Europe.

Buffy stayed in Sunnydale, fighting the good fight. In some other world, she would have been more careful, would have remembered that there was a line between being a leader and a thug, would have kept some bad example in mind as the kind of slayer she never wanted to be. But the injustice of being forced into a slayer life weighed on her, and as long as she killed vamps, it didn't seem like it was that important to follow the rules that ordinary humans did.

So when the Watchers' Council tried to test her, she didn't respond well. When they wanted to hold their knowledge of Glory over a barrel, she didn't let them. Hard.

When it came time to kill Ben, she did what she had to do.

When she was ripped back to earth by Willow's spell, she didn't try so hard to keep up appearances.

She also didn't hesitate to kill Spike when it turned out he could attack her.

When she beat the geek three into confessing on tape before they could get someone killed, Willow and Tara left. Dawn asked to go with them, and Buffy couldn't think of a reason to say no.

Xander left too, after she killed Anya. Snuck up on her, since she had demon powers.

For a while, she is alone.

Eventually, Giles comes back. There's trouble coming, he says, the Council has been destroyed. Young girls are being killed.

Buffy tells him that it's not necessarily a bad thing. At least this way, they'll know that the next Slayer will be someone who fought to get there, who had to survive attacks. Not just some girl who had power thrown on her until she wasn't her any more.

Soon, she sends Giles back to England. Buffy doesn't need the help.


End file.
